“These are not the droids we’re looking for." Something is cooking in Jordan, but the King wants us to look the other way.

The President may not have a strategy on ISIS, but it seems the military has one in play.  Pay attention to the logistics, and a pattern emerges.

Jordan has activated a Defense Ministry.  They haven’t had one in fifty years.

Look at a map.  To the west of Jordan is Israel.  To the north, we find Syria.  And to the east is Al Anbar Province in what the maps still call the country of Iraq, but I’m not quite sure what to call it.  Let’s be PC and call it disputed territory.

If I was King Abdullah I’d be scrambling, too.

Citing Jordan’s state news agency, the North Africa Post reported that the Defense Ministry will now oversee the non-military logistics, administration, investments, and development, allowing the army to “devote itself to its military and professional duties.”

Let me get this straight:  the King wants us to believe that the re-established Defense Ministry isn’t really about defense?  

It’s a little hard to separate the military logistics from the non-military logistics, particularly in a country as small as Jordan.  They only have one seaport, Aqaba, after all.

According to Voice of America news, “Jordan already hosts a small and ostensibly covert effort by the CIA to equip and train small groups of Assad's opponents.  The United States has already increased its military presence in Jordan to around 1,300 soldiers. It has also stationed Patriot surface-to-air missiles there.”

I had a meeting scheduled with somebody - a civilian defense contractor - involved in military logistics earlier this month, a dinner in Dubai as I was passing through.  He cancelled at the last minute, telling me he had to attend a “planning conference” in the region. 

The only people I know who use that phrase are military professionals gearing up to go operational.

One more data point for you:  earlier this summer, the Jordanian army admitted “a general shortage” of manpower, and began a recruiting drive. The police also held a similar recruitment campaign. The recruitment drive of the army was described as “a routine measure, nothing more and nothing less” before adding that recruits are needed to replace those who have retired.

I guess there is some sort of cosmic demographic coincidence, with retirements spiking just as the security situation in the region hits critical mass.

I’ve been to Jordan.  I’ve flown on US military flights out of Jordanian airports.  There is an elephant in the room.  Well, maybe a couple of big camels.  It’s hard to ignore them.  They are smelly, aggressive, and nasty. 

Maybe we should just take direction from the King, accept that what we are seeing are just a couple of innocuous droids, and these are not the droids we’re looking for.  Move along.

“We haven’t lost your car. We just don’t know where it is.”

Military life means that troops are constantly shuffling around, and the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC) at Scott AFB in Illinois, just outside of St. Louis, is supposed to take care of getting their personal property to where it needs to be.

That includes cars.  In particular, they have the jog of moving the personal vehicles for troops going back and forth to some overseas postings.  

According to WJLA, ABC 7, in Washington, DC, “International Auto Logistics got a $305 million contract from the Department of Defense in May. IAL started shipping cars just three months ago.”

Melanie Buckley, whose husband is in the Army, is baffled.  Her car was supposed to arrive at Ft. Belvoir, outside of Washington, DC, on August 4.  It still hasn’t arrived.

She followed up with IAL, and was not reassured.  “We haven’t lost your car. We just don’t know where it is.”

Melanie is not alone.  According to news reports, over 500 cars are MIA.

A press release was posted on the United States Transportation Command – the parent command of SDDC – website.  “The commander, U.S. Transportation Command, has directed site survey teams be sent to privately owned vehicle (POV) staging facilities next week. This is the latest in a series of steps to restore confidence of service members and their families in the POV shipping process.  The site survey teams will focus on verifying the location of service member vehicles in the POV supply chain, as well as observe and evaluate location capacity concerns.”

Are you kidding me? Restore confidence?  Verify location?  Observe and evaluate?

Our troops deserve better than this.